Meet the Cook and the Book: Jean Anderson, A Love Affair with Southern Cooking

Jean Anderson fell in love with Southern cooking at the age of five with her first bite of brown sugar pie. Later, as a New York City magazine editor, then a freelancer, she covered the South interviewing cooks and chefs, sampling local specialties and scribbling notebooks full of recipes.

In her new book, A Love Affair with Southern Cooking, Anderson shares her lifelong exploration of the South’s culinary heritage. In this cookbook and culinary memoir, she assembles more than 200 of southern recipes, collected both at home and on the road, including previously unpublished recipes from the kitchens of great southern cooks as well as signature dishes from some of the South’s most famous restaurants of yesterday and today. Interwoven throughout are snapshot biographies of those who have influenced southern cooking and sidebars devoted to brand-name foods, drinks and chain restaurants with southern roots.

"Georgia pecans are the biggest, the freshest, the sweetest pecans of all -- perfect for recipes both sweet and savory," says Anderson. "No nut is more versatile, and when I’m not cooking with Georgia Pecans, I’m usually eating them out-of-hand. They are nutritious."

From A Love Affair with Southern Cooking, Anderson shares her recipe for Pork Chops with Pecan-And-Onion Stuffing with Georgia pecan lovers in honor of National Georgia Pecan Month in November.